07 February 2025

Skipton Building Society (SBS), the UK’s fourth largest building society, serves over 1.2 million customers from its head office and 81 branches. In 2023, Skipton launched a large-scale transformation programme to address shifting customer behaviours and preferences. The programme focuses on three principles: digital-first, enabling human interaction when needed, and absolute customer focus.

In addition to enhancing the customer experience, there was a need to replace on-premises contact centre technology, which was nearing the end of its support. To build resilience and modernise, Skipton needed to roll out a new contact centre platform quickly, while ensuring quality and minimising risk.

“As a building society, we’re very much customer-led. We want to invest in capabilities that will make a difference for our members and support them in their channel of choice,” said Joe Shaw, Product Owner at Skipton Building Society. “Growing digital presence and customer choice meant taking our contact centre to the cloud. Critical services like telephony and web chat are heavily regulated, so we needed a partner that could provide absolute certainty and careful risk management.”

Cloud migration

Genesys Cloud was selected due to its established position in the market as the Gartner Magic Quadrant Contact Centre as a Service (CCaaS) leader and its status as a proven and tested platform with a clear development roadmap. Kerv was chosen as the delivery and innovation partner.

Rolled out to 1,700 users, the overall solution comprised Genesys Cloud and a range of Kerv-developed products to accelerate deployment, including CX Dynamics (a pre-packaged Microsoft Dynamics connector), CX Vizz (a data connector for Genesys Cloud), and data migration services to integrate bespoke components into several back-office systems.

Moving the contact centre to the cloud was one of the first deliverables: “It was high profile, so we couldn’t afford to leave anything to chance,” said Ben Shirt, Project Manager at Skipton Building Society. “We needed to ensure internal stakeholders and key decision-makers felt comfortable, particularly among our Business Readiness Council and internal audit team.”

Kerv configured the platform and integrated it with the wider application landscape, such as legacy fax applications and data warehouse platforms. “Understanding the impact and associated risks for a project of this size and developing solutions at real pace was a relatively new discipline. In some instances, we identified a problem at the start of the day, captured requirements in the morning, and had a solution built to release by the afternoon. For me, that is what agile development is really about—enhancing our speed to market,” said Shaw.

Kerv also offered hybrid manual and automated testing. The company’s International Software Testing Qualifications Board (ISTQB) certified test manager planned and coordinated all the QA efforts and test plan. This enhanced overall test coverage and reduced User Acceptance Testing (UAT) time with Kerv’s QA test tooling consisting of Azure DevOps (ADO) and Cyara CX Assurance tooling.

Further, Kerv collaborated with Skipton and other third parties to ensure a successful go-live. Kerv provided regression testing of 2,000 numbers during the cutover, which took just 8 minutes, enabling quick identification and rectification of number translation errors on the fly. Skipton coordinated effective reporting lines on the go-live date, with Kerv onsite to assist with any user errors. Kerv also used Cyara Pulse for continuous regression testing and monitoring during hypercare to ensure all lines performed as expected.

From 0 to 100 – in 9 months

The new Genesys Cloud platform enables over 1,700 users to manage phone, email, and chat conversations from a standard desktop, rationalising 1,768 configured DDIs with 418 queues and 382 inbound call flows. Along with in-house customisations, Skipton successfully integrated an existing workforce management solution and data warehouse infrastructure.

Skipton believes average handling time and first contact resolution have both already improved, while customers and brokers have more opportunities to self-serve. Now, with asynchronous Genesys Web Messaging available on its website, advisors can have 3-4 interactions on the go at the same time.

“The new Genesys Cloud platform enables over 1,700 users to manage phone, email, and chat conversations from a standard desktop, rationalising 1,768 configured DDIs with 418 queues and 382 inbound call flows.”

Previously, software updates would be planned 12-18 months in advance and use to be a big concern from a service impact point of view. Now, with clear line of sight provided by Genesys Cloud as to where the innovation roadmap is heading, Skipton tech teams receive and deploy updates once a week, with far less effort.

“Kerv Experience brought innovative ideas that really challenged our thinking. For a regulated organisation operating in pretty tight risk and compliance frameworks, that was refreshing,” said Shaw. “With Kerv, we went from a blank sheet of paper, no requirements, no contract or legals, to go live within nine months. That really was extraordinary.”

“Working closely with Skipton, we derisked and accelerated the migration, meeting an aggressive nine-month go-live date,” said Gary Muchmore, Operations Director at Kerv. “Within a few months, Skipton began to see improved CX with higher first contact resolution and lower average handling time. Previously impossible innovations are now firmly within their reach.”

An AI-enabled future

Looking ahead, Skipton aims to quickly pilot new AI functionality such as predictive engagement to nudge customers on their website. The Genesys Cloud fabric, together with flexible free trials, allows Skipton to iteratively implement new functionality and easily measure success before proceeding to a full-scale rollout.

“Our aim in the future is—way before they reach an advisor—to answer questions like, ‘What’s the customer’s intent? Do they seem angry or upset? What do we already know about them?’ That’s the assured way of showing real empathy,” said Shaw.